The effect of porn on teenage boys and young men

[DeviTheGaelet]

Did anyone else hear the section on R5 about porn addiction the other day? They spoke to a doctor who is looking into the defects of porn on men. A study in Italy found 40% of young men were having erectile issued, of those 60% were psychologically caused ( I think those were the stats).
The doctor suggested that watching porn during adolescence is training men to be aroused by purely visual stimuli and the visual stimuli are not realistic. As a result they are not being wired to find the smells and touch of actual sex arousing. As a result they are having election issues.
He described porn as "stunt sex" and said it was creating a generation of men who's sexual relationships were with their hand and a screen rather than another person.
I found it really interesting. We talk a lot on here about the harm porn causes women and girls but I've not heard so much about the impact on boys.
I think this should be discussed in PSHE in schools. Maybe this will be the personal impact many men need to see how harmful porn can be.

PinkIsRad Utilitarianism and a codification of rights does not work, you are right. It is more that porn is wrong in and of itself rather than it being a human rights issue.

All discussions concerning human rights end up in hopeless tangles.

Cambridge is endorsing the slut-shaming view that women in pornography degrade themselves.

Well it is isn't it.

'Slut-shaming' is bullshit dreamt up by solipsistic liberal feminists which has played right into the hands of people like you growapear.

No it isn't. Pornography degrades women as a class. It's hard to judge individual people who are members of the oppressed class as they have to work within the context of that oppression.

It's almost like those liberal feminists are centring men and their needs.

Exactly venus.

Whatever you say qwerty.

venus actually I personally think that porn has a much more detrimental impact on young boys. Your argument assumes that every single consumer of porn is unable to distinguish from reality. Whereas that is much more true for boys than men. Hence why above I said one has to intervene early. But you are generalizing on a grand scale based on your personal opinions. And that means nothing.

and qwerty - you never did respond to MephistophelesApprentice's question

PinkIsRad you are talking about your private life, relationships and sexual preferences.

If a random bloke you didn't know, like, find attractive or desire came on your face and posted a film of it on the internet would you love that too?

An action is not always exactly the same thing. Ejaculating on someone's face is not always the same action done with the same intention. Intercourse can be a loving intimate act like it can be something a couple does because they want to have a baby like it can be rape.

"I like being ejaculated on therefore ejaculating on women's faces is never intended to degrade" is not a robust argument.

Porn is reality. It is frequently staged, but it is actually happening.

venus "Pornography degrades women as a class." - How? Because the sex depicted is in your OPINION degrading? Because it doesn't depict it how you like to do it with your other half? In addition, you mistake porn for a cause rather than a symptom.

You are saying that these women think "since it's ok if my husband does it, it's ok for my 10 year old son"? How stupid do they have to be. If "does it" is porn it's fine but if "does it" were say alcohol it wouldn't be fine?

It was asked what role women can play in preventing porn from harming their DC, and I think that discussing the potential dangers with the DC before they view it, and I do think those conversations should come from the men in their lives, but mothers can discuss it too.
I think one reason these discussions are not happening is that the users of porn get very angry when the possible negatives are pointed out, and for some women, they may not be having the discussions because they don't actually think it's harmful as their dhs have been watching it without any issues, many don't realise just how grim mainstream porn is now too.

I don't think it's a case of being ok with their 10 year olds watching it, I think it's more of a hoping they won't, to me, it makes sense to give the boys the tools to say no when their mates try to show them whatever in their phones, but can they do that if nobody is talking to them about it before it gets to that point?

I said similar in my second post, that the dangers of smoking can be pointed out to children without thise who smoke getting angry and defensive. Even the people who smoke point the dangers out to their DC. Why can't the Dads and men who use porn do the same?

Sadly as thread shows, when women try to discuss the harmful effects on our children, in this case our sons, porn users go on the defensive and get pissed off, and the issue of the potential harm to young boys is ditched.

This really annoys me, because the men that have warped views of women were exactly those 10 year olds.

Last sentence isn't mine. Copy and paste for quoting error.

Hasn't that already been explained, PinkisRad? It isn't about personal preference at all, but about what could be deemed degrading in various contexts under the law.

Beach ""I like being ejaculated on therefore ejaculating on women's faces is never intended to degrade" is not a robust argument."

How ironic.

"I hate being ejaculated on therefore ejaculating on women's faces is intended to degrade" is not a robust argument. Is exactly what I was saying.

Don't mistake me, I definitely agree that in particular young boys need to be taught that what they see in porn, is not how they can treat women. However, your generalizations is what I oppose.

But nobody has made the argument that because they personally dislike something it is therefore degrading, PinkisRad.

Even the people who smoke point the dangers out to their DC. Why can't the Dads and men who use porn do the same?

Because the people themselves don't see those as dangers. "I don't treat women like shit because of porn, so porn isn't bad".

Hasn't that already been explained, PinkisRad? It isn't about personal preference at all, but about what could be deemed degrading in various contexts under the law.

Because the law now is unchangeable and necessarily correct?

While respecting the differing perspectives of the people on this thread, the one thing I am certain of is that the last thing the anti-porn folk have on their minds is the well-being of men and boys.

I think many people on here are advocating for a change in the law.

But judgements about the law are created by a consensus and by looking at context.

That's the case for any complex issue. It's like the current rights for AI being considered. It is highly complex and decided contextually and collaboratively, and will then be interpreted on a case by case basis.

I as a potential consumer of AI am not expected to have that level of expertise. The same is true with censorship and restriction of distribution. For an example with the current laws, I expect the legal certification to be clearly displayed. I don't expect to be able to make that distinction solely myself based on content.

I think I made my argument perfectly clear. If you're that obtuse there isn't much more I can say. No one is saying that you can't enjoy your fetish in a consensual environment in private. Just that it is considered degrading by very many people and so the repeated depiction of women having it done to them in pornography is degrading to women as a class.

young boys need to be taught that what they see in porn, is not how they can treat women.

Why is that PinkIsRad?

young boys need to be taught that what they see in porn, is not how they can treat women

why? That seems to me to be incredibly defeatist. I would much prefer we didn't give up on the idea of preventing young boys being exposed not just to adult material, but often extreme adult material in the first place. If that means banning it outright I don't have a problem, though I would expect agreeing the exact definition of porn might be an interesting debate going by this thread.

And what about our young girls? Porn is epidemic and uncontrollable currently. It may have been predominately males that were exposed to it a decade or two ago but not now. For every young boy watching a porno and thinking that's what their girlfriend should let them do there's probably a young girl thinking that's what she's expected to accept as normal sexual practice.

Don't lose heart. I have a DS in his late teens and he has, what seems, an amazingly healthy view of sexual relationships; He doesn't seem to have any feelings of jealousy or right to gf's time and has been really proud and supportive of her studies and hobbies. They have both amazed me & made me feel I'm not as grown up as they are.

They have been exposed to so much in their lifetimes; online porn, social media, then there are the terrorist videos, which I'm sure must do the rounds at school, but it seems teenagers could teach us a lot